So close... and yet so far

Rating: 4/10 (27 January 2014)

I was looking forward to 'Pacific Rim', like an adult reliving his childhood. I grew up with Transformers and Voltron, robots and monsters, dinosaurs and aliens - so 'Pacific Rim', to me, was going to be fun.
If I had watched it without sound, I would have loved it. Sure, CGI is at a point now where anything is possible, and the majority of CGI work now is great, but watch the movie with sound, and become bitterly disappointed.
I'm Australian, so when foreigners try to act Australian, I watch (well listen) closely. The Aussie accents were bad. Atrocious to be honest. They were over-done, and forced, like most of the acting throughout the movie.
Why the Australian father/son team had a British bulldog, I'll never know. Surely a Kelpie would be more appropriate?
Many reviews here pan the two scientists we see on their own quests to understand the Kaiju and ultimate eliminate them. One, a Rick Moranis wanna-be is both annoying, yet entertaining. He's hypo, lively, active and quick, so stands out from the other dull performances given by the rest of the cast.
I've read other reviews here and agree totally with those who ask why and how about various plot holes through which the Kaiji themselves could fly. So I add nothing new to add. But I do agree.
It really is a movie for kids, despite the fighting, the death and the badly-acted emotional sub-plots. But at least they'll enjoy the robots and monsters at the innocent child-like level I was hoping to. Sure I went in wanting to be a 10 year old again, but being almost 40 made me see the movie as a professional product from Hollywood, and at that, I was disappointed.